Week 04, 2000 ,Svenson
-- Previous week -- Most recent -- Next week --
|
Day view |
MM-xxiv Monday |
2000-01-24 |
Haha, minus 7°C. And no wind and no rain. Just nice. Oeps, why is everybody casting dark gaze in my direction. Strange some people seem to prefer wet windy slouchy weather. (au, those stared become black). The Americans uncovered another problem. We use small server programs that get specific codes from the database. One of the codes is for the number of decimals in currency amounts, another for the language etc. One of these server programs is intended to serve up the country code (3 char) . What it does however is return the language code (2 char). It has been doing this since 1995 (last program change) without any one noticing it. And indeed most countries use the same code (FR for France and French, IT for Italy and Italian, etc.) America does things different (of course) They use USA for country and EN for language. So now I am digging out where that program is used to find out if we can actually correct it without breaking things. And I learned from Leah Syroid that a bath bomb is not related to a land mine but rather a cross between what we have here as bath salt (fizzles) and batch soap (foams). I took an other couple of picture with different light settings. While they show a bit brighter on the build in LCD, once transferred I don't see much difference. Hmm, not much depth of field. But considdering that I was not using any lightning, only the flash it still looks not too bad. I must reshoot that one in XGA. |
Day view |
MM-xxv Tuesday |
2000-01-25 |
Day view |
MM-xxvi Wednesday |
2000-01-26 |
It is still dry and clear but the temperature is rising, -2°C in the morning and above freezing during the day. The sun, while visible, is a bit hazy so tomorrow we will get freezing mist. One of those day where lots of small tasks get handled and finished. No mayor discussions or problems interrupted my work so I got a lot done but at the end of the day, I cannot really say what I did. It weren't cockroaches because I did real work. Just before closing down I got an answer from Loek. I asked to clarify the first PRS (nr 13077) because it wasn't clear. His answer isn't clear either, "sometimes I get that message and sometimes I don't". That doesn't help me a bit. Does he want it always, or never, or ... . I will ask him for a direct business rule that I must apply. If he can't answer that he is shooting his own feet. If he doesn't come up wit a rule I make one up myself. In BOFH style. The skeleton of a PC (Pa) was sitting around here, always in the wrong place. It is just the metalwork and the AT power supply, no front, no mobo, no cards. Now it is not simple to get rid of it because it is a rather heavy (yes, made from real steel) and bulky. The only way to dump it is to take it to a special recycle and waste sorting place, a 'container park'. These parks are only open during office hours and on Saturday but, on Saturday there is always a pile up. |
Day view |
MM-xxvii Thursday |
2000-01-27 |
While the temperature doesn't change the weather brightens up again, with sun all day and no clouds. I returned a question to Loek because his reply from yesterday was not helpful at all. A few hours later I got a new answer and I pinned down the problem. The message that he gets and that he doesn't want occurs (sometimes) in a situation which is impossible with our program. That is smelly and when you can smell the fish it is easy to track it down. Loek is assisting the Norwegians and, after getting a password for their system I find out that they have a local adaptation of that program. Using that I can repeat the problem but when I bypass it and use our own, common program (still available in Norway) I don't get the problem. And I clear some more work so I can pick up the II and DR ownership handling for the V9 release tomorrow. I am advancing with my story but I am working without a plot which doesn't make it easier. In fact it becomes a bit boring. |
Day view |
MM-xxviii Friday |
2000-01-28 |
It still remains cold, well -3°C isn't real cold of course, and dry but clouds are returning. The II and DR adaptations are finally rolling, it is just a question of keeping up the momentum. Jan was here to check on the progress we were making. Concerning the contract prolongation I had the feeling that our adaptation worked, well I was damn sure about it, but that the problem was that the final stage did not pick up expired contracts. I was right about this but there is a way to circumvent that by setting a reference date. We tested it (directly on the Norwegian production database ) and it did work. Afterwards Theo composed a mail for Norway to explain how they should do the prolongation. I had to fill in a few technical gap for him but he clearly is picking up on how the whole system works. Explaining things is becoming less of a problem now. At home Peter came over and we shifted the furniture in the small frontal room. He is removing the old linoleum floor to replace it later with parquet. For once the job is going faster than planned. This room is actually a test, if it turns out as a success we are going to do all the rooms upstairs. What we must do anyway is the landing because the stair to the attic must be fixed there. At the moment is a trapdoor that must be closed each time. |
Day view |
MM-xxix Saturday |
2000-01-29 |
During last evening and this night the weather as turned. It's not freezing anymore (+5°C) and it started to rain. Because the wind picked up as well, driving the rain in all directions, it is really miserable weather. I've gone shopping again. And I return with three new mice (along with instant soup, wine, etc. ). Well I needed one as my main mouse started acting up and cleaning the rollers doesn't help. Now I do have some spare mice gathering dust but it are all serial beasts and I need a PS/2 one. And I will need another one shortly so getting two isn't a waste. The third one is. Only this is a cordless mouse with a tablet and a pen. I will try that out and if it works well I will pass it on to Martine, my brothers partner, who is schooled as an artist. Last week I had ordered a few cables trough the online shop at Masset. I had commented on the shop site (no dark background which is good, graphics too big which isn't) he presents via an e-mail as well. When I arrived there this morning he checked and had nor received the order. he had received the mail and consequentially changed the graphics. While showing me the new layout he noticed that the order form didn't work. And he immediately knew why he was getting so few orders this last week. Auch. On Tuesday I copied The Map to my own Daynotes Com mirror. I posted it but I forgot to post the updated main page so there was no link to it. Yep, it is not only small shopkeepers that make mistakes. I did that now and I removed the mail list as well. |
Day view |
MM-xxx Sunday |
2000-01-30 |
The temperature keeps rising, up to 9°C this morning. And the wind keeps whipping up the rain. At half distance on my running I am already soaking wet. Normally I enjoy running in the rain but not with the winds we have today. Most of the day is spent on reading. The magazines are spilling over from one stack onto another. In between I finish sorting bank slips and invoices. And, with Peter here, I lend a hand with shifting furniture. |